An American artist has created stunning colourful representations showing what Wi-Fi waves, peaks and pulses would look like if we could see them.

Nickolay Lamm worked with former Nasa astrobiologist M. Browning Vogel to learn how the networks move and based the designs on coverage data taken from around the U.S Congress and The National Mall in Washington.

The images show the shape of the Wi-Fi signal's and different colours were used to distinguish the different sub channels.

The project was a follow-up to Lamm's Wi-fi visualisations released last year which depicted the shape of the Wi-Fi signals. The Wi-Fi pulses are shown here as spheres. Lamm used red, orange, yellow and other colours to represent these invisible channels that make up the overall Wi-Fi signal

Wi-Fi routers on buildings and lamp posts create a circular omnidirectional data fields around them, pictured. Wi-Fi broadcasts at a frequency between radio and microwaves, meaning that the waves or pulses are about six inches apart, as shown by these coloured bands in front of Congress

WHAT IS WI-FI?

Wi-fi is an energy field that is transmitted as waves and pulses.

Each wave has a certain height, are different distances from each other, and each travel at a certain speed.

The
distance between Wi-Fi waves is shorter than radio waves but longer
than microwaves.

As well as looking great, the illustrations were also designed to teach people about how Wi-Fi signals work.

Lamm, from website MyDeals.com, said: 'Although we use it often, we rarely think about how it works.

'A lot of us take technology for granted and use it without appreciating the science that makes it work.'

To approximate the size of the Wi-Fi coverage around The National Mall - an open-area national park in Washington DC - Lamm used the 3D Wi-Fi shapes and data from the District of Columbia Government coverage maps.

The captions were written by Browning Vogel, a Ph.D. in astrobiology who previously worked at Nasa Ames
for five years and now teaches science.

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Each picture shows a familiar Washington landmark surrounded by Wi-Fi channels represented as different colours, as 'interlocking bubbles'.

Lamm then added a hazy effect to areas of the signal broken by a tree, landmark or other obstacle.

Wi-Fi uses the radio frequency band of the electromagnetic spectrum between radio waves and microwaves. According to Ofcom, the UK will have a severe shortage of airwaves used for WiFi by 2020

A typical outdoor router can project its Wi-Fi signal 300ft or more from its location. Objects such as trees can obstruct this signal and the waves are often boosted by using multiple routers. This kind of set up creates a field that extends all the way across Washington DC's National Mall, pictured

Wi-fi waves travel as rapid, data encoded pulses or waves. A freezeframe of these pulses are shown by the lightly coloured bands in this image

In another of his images, multiple
Wi-Fi pulse frequencies are represented as blue, green, yellow, and red
that pervade the space around the mall.

In a third, Lamm showed the range of multiple Wi-Fi signals across The National Mall in Washington.

Writing on his MyDeals.com blog, Lamm said: 'We use red, orange, yellow and other colors [sic] to show the
invisible Wi-Fi channels that make up the overall signal.

'Wi-Fi
fields are usually spherical or ellipsoidal and
extend about 20-30 meters [sic], assuming a typical off the shelf box.'

Wi-fi is an energy field that is transmitted as waves.

Each wave has a certain height, distance from other waves, and they each travel at a certain speed.

The
distance between Wi-Fi waves is shorter than radio waves but longer than microwaves.

Lamm claims this gives Wi-Fi a unique transmission band
that can't be interrupted by other signals.